
Class 



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Copyright}! . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSHV 



Wildwood Homes 



Being I collection oi houses 

and details with suggestions 

for the home builder 







• G 7 



Copyright, 1912 

By The Wildwood Builders Co. 

Fort Wayne, Indiana 



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© CI. A 3 3 2 4 2 9 



CONTENTS 

The House Durable 

Page Seven 

The Pasting of the Parlor 

Page Twenty-three 

The Fireplace 

Page Thirty-three 







Have you heard oPfhe wonderful one-hoSS shay. 
That was built in Such a logical way 

It ran a hundred years to a day?- 

* * * # # 

Logic is logic . That's all I Say. 





THE HOUSE DURABLE 



For fifty years and more in this 
country of ours we have been 
building things destined if not de- 
liberately designed to break down 
and not wear out. It is the age of 
passing fancies and of fleeting 
fashions. All the rage today they 
are a joke tomorrow. Milady's 
hat of yesteryear may be as good 
today as when it came forth at 
Eastertide a milliners creation, 
yet should she wear on the street 
— well, she wouldn't do it, so why 
discuss the impossible? Our ma- 
terial prosperity, we will not say 
the newness of our arrival, has en- 
couraged indulgence in vagaries, 
conceits, and vanities. The weal- 
thy vie as did the ancient Athen- 
ians in producing "some new 
thing'' and no sooner is it the 
vogue than it is discarded as the 
toy of which the child has tired. 
Each year sees something new in 
the fashions of dress, jewelry, fur- 
niture and architecture, and, mark 
it well, the only fashions that en- 
dure are those based on the 
models that obtained before the 
age of fashion — those "dear old 
things'' whose beauty is their sim- 
plicity and whose art is their art- 
lessness. Now the tendency of 








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Seco/ipruoou pia/s< 





our time not 

gality and wastefulness but it sac- 
rifices that which is truly meritor- 
ious to that which is novel, that 
which is enduring to that which is 
ephemeral. The man of average 
fortune is kept panting to main 
tain a pace that is a killing pace 
and which leads merely to the 
vulgar and barbaric. Indeed, the 
great need of the day is a return to 
that which is enduring, sane liv- 
ing, sane thinking, and sane fash- 
ion, fashions that are always in 
fashion because they are funda- 
mentally and essentially correct 
and in good taste. The enduring 
makes not only for economy but 
it imparts to us the spirit and the 
understanding of th.it which is the 
best and the most beautiful. 



i 



Dr. Holmes in his masterly 
story of "The One Hoss Shay" 
with quaint humor pointed out 
the rule that the wise will follow, 
the rule of leaving no weak places 
in our work. No chain is strong- 
er than its weakest link and the 
Deacon who constructed the "One 
Hoss Shay" realized 



"That the weakest place must 

stan' the strain 
'N* the way to fix it uz I maintain 
Iz only jest 




strong- 
est oak, the lancewood and ash 
from the straightest trees, steel of 
the finest, bright and blue, and 
the leather, that tough old hide 
that was found in the pit when the 
tanner died. And we remember 
as well how he put all these ma- 
terials together so carefully, so 
painstakingly, and so scientifical- 
ly that when that vehicle had run 
a hundred years to a day there 
was no bit of local trouble. 

"There couldn't be, for the Dea- 
con s art 
Had made it so like in every part. 
That there wasn't a chance for 

one to start; 
For the wheels were just as strong 

as the thills, 
And the floor was just as strong 

as the sills, 
And the panels were just as strong 

as the floor, 
And the whippletree neither less 

nor more. 
And the back cross-bar as strong 

as the fore, 
And spring, and axle, and hub 

encore." 

That was a model "Shay" that 
the Deacon built, and Dr. Holmes 







<s 




And to nothing is this rule more 
appropriate and applicable than 
in the building of homes, for it 
is given to the average Amrr 
to build not more than one home 
in a life time. Yet this average 
American is forrvrr beset, con- 
sumed, pestered, obsessed, and 
inspired by thr ambition to build. 
It is a thing he wants and he won't 
be happy till he getl it. .And, un- 
less hr has wisely counseled and 
well, he won't be then. For build- 
ing a house is an undertaking not 
to be entered into lightly I he- 
determination, the persistence, 
the patience, t \nd above .ill the 
knowledge of the builder of the 
"Shay" are necessary to the at- 
tainment of the end desired. I<> 
the uninitiated the labor is beset 
by pit-falls, and when it seems 
that nothing has been left undone 
to produce the house durable 
some fatal defect is disclosed to 
mar the pleasure of possession. 

For example, has it ever oc- 
curred to you that the very best 



w«yr ( 





-5CCO/rt> FLOOR FW*« 




South Side «** Liviaiq Room.»* 

14 




by the most skilled workmen and 
the result be far short of a house 
durable? Oh yes, it may stand 
there through the years as un- 
changed and unchanging as the 
Druid altars at Stonehenge. It 
physically may be impervious to 
the tooth of time and razure of 
oblivion; but none the less it may 
be a different house to you after 
a short period of occupancy. The 
pleasure that was yours at the be- 
ginning is lost, and losing it, you 
find that you did not build 
durably. The wheels of its 
carpentry are just as strong as the 
thills of its masonry, and the floor 
of its plumbing as the sills of its 
tinning, while the panels of its 
heating and ventilating are as 
strong as any other part. And 
yet it has broken down rather than 
worn out. In an evil hour, and 
may it be forever accursed, you 
adopted some architectural fad 
or fashion of the day and as a 
consequence all the excellent car- 
pentry, fine masonry, and splen- 
did plumbing came to naught. 
The weakest part hasn't stood the 
strain which the change of fash- 
ions and your own development 
in ideas have placed upon it. It 



I 





flRST fLOOE PLA^l 




SECOND FLOOR. PLVJ 




SoUflOCe family reluctantly ac- 
knowledge as home and you will 
better understand prrha; •-. Noth- 
ing the matter here with wheels of 
the carpentry, the thills of the 
masonry, the floor of the plumb- 

01 the sills of thr hratin/ 
ventilation. As good as the day 
they were placed twrnty J 

Ah. but herr wr OOYC it! 
I lere's the brokrn whippletree of 
I j/m^rrbread slate mar.tlr. and 
thrrr in thr snapped crossbar of 

a scroll worked doorway. ( 

yonder's thr crumbling hub 

•prowling bow-window end on on 

the top is thr smashrd axlr 

cupole or tain f eornj rhc 

sleek and shining finish of thr 
woodwork. COTVod Ul COtCD thr 

most possible dust and kill the 

moot poeelblc women i Icinm^ it. 

is the broken spring, and alto- 
gether it smacks ot the day when 
it was considered artistic and 
aesthetic to bang the walls with 
londei apes painted inside gilded 
and plush framed wooden chop- 
ping bowls, and quite the thing 
to stick on the backs of chairs of 
the parlor suite, throws of fine 
netting filled with that cottony 



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-TlRST fLOOR Plaajj- 



18 



•3ECOMO TLOOtt PlAAT' 





stuff from the milkweed pods. 
The Sourfaces can give the land- 
scapes to the washerwoman on 
Christmas and put the milkweed 
throws in the Missionary barrel; 
but, by heck, they can't eliminate 
the bow-window, the cupola, thr 
slate mantle, the grill work, and 
all the other atrocities that, oner 
the pride of their hearts, now 
hang on like the albatross that is 
the badge of shame. They fell 
for a fad and thr fad has the 
spurs in them. 

Yet the house durable is not an 
impossibility. Indeed it is a liv- 
ing fact and not only one of our 
day, but our father's, our grand- 
father's, and our great grandfath- 
er's days. Who of us may not 
recall a home or a dozen homes 
we have known familiarly for 
years wherein there is nothing to 
jar or offend! 

Built originally along lines that 
have stood the test of ages they 
still appeal and will appeal so long 
as brick and mortar and beam 
hang together. They were pleas- 
ing because of their strength and 
simplicity when they were erected 
twenty-five, fifty, or a hundred 
years ago, and as the truly beau- 
tiful and the really artistic know 



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1 1 lift 

Oecond Floor. Pla^ 



f IR3T fLOOR-PlAN 



20 





no change or shadow of turning 
they must so continue. Their 
architecture is of the enduring 
quality of their oak beams and of 
the granite on which they are 
reared. They are the houses dur- 
able that will stand against the 
winds and floods and rains of 
changing fashion. For they are 
founded upon the rock of good 
taste. 



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Hrst Visor Pla-n- 





22 



V l 




THE PASSING OF THE PAR- 
LOR 

A loCtt] building company in 

its advertisement in the News to- 
day mentions the passing of the 
parlor irom the plans of the mod- 
ern house. To the incoming gen- 
eration, which was never im- 
mersed in the odor of parlor sanc- 
tity, that may not mean much, but 
to those of us who are older it is 
redolent with memories grave and 
gay, the gaiety, alas, finding its 
genesis more in a latter-day ap- 
preciation of the grotesque than 
in joyous recollections of the hap- 
py past. For the parlor of the 
generation gone was not some- 
thing to be entered into lightly. 
How through the mellow haze of 



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•First Floor Pl*s«« - 




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intervening years its appoint- 
ments, every one a shrine, frame 
themselves slowly from that un- 
certainty with which time invests 
all things! And it is dim, too. 
today because it was never well 
lighted in the hey-day of its musty 
glory, its jealous guardians fear- 
ing that the intrusion of God'a 
sunlight would fade the startling 
reds and greens of those impossi- 
bly mammoth flowers incident to 
the adornmr-nt of the Brussels car- 
pet. The stiff haircloth furniture, 
six straight -barkrd. uncomfortable 
chairs, the Davenport, and the 
excruciating ottoman are arranged 
in deadly precision about the 
walls facing the marbletopped 
center tabic with the o 
wooden dog squatting likr a p.i 
gan idol on a sort of shelf be- 
tween the table's heavy legs. The 
photograph album and fifty- 
pound family Bible with those gilt 
hasps, that seem designed to with- 
hold the unsearchable riches from 
the unworthy, crown this inevi- 
table center piece and give added 
solemnity to the environment. 
Upon the mantel-piece the three 
glass bells protect from the vulgar 
and polluting touch of such un- 
fortunate flies as may chance to 
become imprisoned in this sanctu- 



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riE5T TLOOE Pi/W 



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srco-Np r-LOce pla^ 



26 





ary the polished brass clock that 
grandpa bought in New York, a 
basket of artificial wax fruit of 
suspicious size, evenness and 
beauty of color, picked up by 
someone the Lord knows where, 
when or how, and finally under 

the third bell crowning glory of 

the skillful handiwork and morbid 
creative faculty of lamented Aunt 
I.li/a — a presentment of Rock of 
Ages, fashioned from the hair of 
all the relatives by blood and mar- 
riage, and collected by this ex- 
cellent spinster at a family re- 
union. Microbes wrrr then un- 
known and she plied her needle 
all unhaimrd and unafraid! .And 
then the "what not." crowded 
with pink shells from the sea in 
which the children fancied thry 
could still hear the roaring of the 
waves; with atrocious china vases 
and bowls collected here and 
there; a startling red goblet bear- 
ing the legend in frosted letters, 
"Memento of the Centennial"; a 
photograph of General Grant 
somehow encrusted in a glass pa- 
per weight; a cannon ball from 
the blood-bought field of Gettys- 
burg; Indian arrow-heads; gold 
quartz from the mine Uncle Ed 
went broke on; a petrified turtle, 
and a hundred other useless odds 



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- TlFOT TL-OOR Pl-vm ' 




- Second ri_ooR Plvs - 





and ends garnered in laboriously 
through the weary years by the 
enterprising rubes and rubber- 
necks of the family. And the 
pictures Wide-Awake and Fast 
Asleep in their jarring discords of 
color; Henry Clay in the sr: 
a steel engmYttlg of the signing of 
the Declaration of Independence, 
not half bad, by the way; and I 
landscape in oil, which that long- 
nosed Cousin Sallir painted and 
gave mother one Christmas in rx- 

changc lor ■ p erf e ctl y elegant silk 

bed quilt — a painting that thrust 
the steel of conviction into rvcn 
your childish bosom th.it Cousin 
Sallie should havr confined her 
artistic passion to barns and back 
fences. Oh that parlorl Its con- 
tents representing the value of all 
the rest of the stuff in the house 
and still only used on such state 
occasions as funerals and when 
the presiding elder came to stay 
on quarterly meeting days, at 
which times we were all herded 
in there for "family worship" be- 
fore breakfast, an invasion of this 
holy-of-holies necessitated by the 
presence there of the big Bible 
aforesaid, which, by the way, al- 
ways ground its tell-tale coat of 
dust into the broad clothed knees 
of the good elder during his read- 



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30 



.Seccxnp fLooR, Plan 



Tl^ST rLOOR.Pl>A\ 



ing of some appropriate passage 
from Jeremiah or Job. The old- 
fashioned parlor! A place that 
was "too nice to use,'* and which 
yet represented an outlay that 
might easily have made the bal- 
ance of the home more happy, 
more comfortable, and in retro- 
spect today more lovely. Has it 
passed altogether? Not quite, 
perhaps, but thank God it is pass- 
ing, and will soon be gone. For 
it is barbaric, and in nothing i* 
it symbolic of the home we see 
through the moist eyes of lov- 
ing memory. That home lives in 
the old-fashioned "sitting room" 
with its cheery open fire that 
sparkles and crackles even now. 
making bright the circle of happy 
faces about it — fares that fade to 
the Father-land only when we 
turn from the picture of the past 
to a consciousness of the now- 
time we had momentarily forgot- 
ten. 



W 





First Floor Vu\+a 



32 - Seco aid tljoor Pi/vh - 





If you're getting on in years — 
along about that age when you 
begin to use hair tonic and pills, 
and to rub cold cream in your 
crow's feet — you can look back 
and recall how gladsomely the 




Shawnee Place, Fort Wayne, Indiana 




- First Floor. PLvh - 



I 



fife 



• 5ECO/HD fLOQR PI *V* - 



34 




were provided witn nreplaces. tor 
the era of the base burner had ar- 
rived. Undoubtedly the base 
burner heated the house better 
and its benickled ornamentation 
with its shining towers, and min- 
arets appealed to the somewhat 
barbaii imt/tm of the day, so the 
fire pi. i' e patted as an institution 
t fi.it had had its time. The old 
brass andirons were sent up to 
the attic along with granny's 
spinning wheel, the quaint old 
warming pan, the hair trunks, the 
four poster bed, and a lot of other 
junk that was considered of no 
earthly use and yet too good to 
throw away. The fireplace was 
gone and apparently gone for- 
ever. Indeed, when the furnace 
supplanted the base burner, as it 
shortly did. the fire place was 
made to appear as thoroughly 
among the things of a by-gone 
day as the old fashioned castor 
and the feather-bed. Moreover, 
everyone was glad of it for the 
furnaces heated the houses per- 
fectly and then besides, the fire- 
places had been no end of a 
bother. 1 he wood had to be 
carried in, the kindling split up. 



■ 




■ fiRsr Floor Pia^ 



DECO/SD FL££>R"PLA^° 
36 



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the ashes taken out, the andirons 
polished, the hearth swept, and a 
half dozen other things done, and 
after all, the only boon this trou- 
ble brought was the doubtful 
privilege of being roasted in front 
while you froze behind. So 
soned the average householder, 
and no new house had a fireplace 
U P sl i my 

s chamber. To be sure, oc- 
casionally, a dinky little . 
was installed, or one of those 
truly atrocious gas logs, but these 
were mere excuses for the peipe- 
tr.ition of fancy mantles with mul- 
titudes of beveled glass mirrors 
and wooden gingeihlHOil, They 
i't installed to use at all — 
merely to look at and inspire the 
en\y and wonder of the admiring 
yaps. I \u- fireplace was .1 thing 
of yeste rd.iv and enshrined in 
momory along with the moving 
Cradle, the stage coach, the Dutch 
oven, and several other institu- 
tions that were all very well in 
their day, but without part or 
parcel in the new age of progress 
and improvement. Yes, the fire- 
place was a back number. Every- 
body said so and assuredly every- 
body ought to know. Vox pop- 
uli, Vox Dei — 

Yet, today the old-fashioned 







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riCZOT FLOOR, RlAN 



*-»*. I 1 



38 .SECOND ?°LOOR, PL<*N 




fireplace is coming back again and 
practically every modern house 
that is built gives space for it as 
for an honored altar. It is back 
again and that too despite the fact 
that it serves no practical purpose 
in an all too practical age. It adds 
nothing to the heating of the 
home, and the firewood it con- 
sumes, almost might be denomi- 
nated an extravagance. In fact, 
the fireplace today can be regard- 
ed only as a luxury, yet mind you, 
it is a luxury apart. It ministers 
neither to gross appetite, vanity, 
nor passion, and in a large and 
librral sense, may be said to p .1 r 
t.ikr of thr luxury of giving, rvrn 
tli.tt giving to thr poor whi< h is 
lending to thr Lord. 

For the fireplace of today is 
our < onrrssion to thr family t ir< lr 
— our drmand for its prrsrrv.i 
tion. our protrst against its rvan- 
ishment. It is. if you please, a 
salaam to sentiment. For in all 
times from the open fire has 
sprung the wrlding flame that 
bound the family about it in an 
indissoluble union. It has been 
the genius of the family circle. No 
one ever thought of such a thing 
as a family circle about a strain 
radiator or a hot air register, and 
you can take it from high author- 



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SECOND rtQOB PlAM 



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n Marco Bozzaris, 
his band,'* exhorted 
strike for their altars 
i," he didn't have in 
gan Base Burner or 
ove. 
th-shots falling thick 
re directed by pa- 
fire places and who, 
as they battled, saw as by the yule 
log's flickering flames, the ! 
of all those loved and dear. 

In all ages and ail climes the 
open fire has served as the com- 
forter and companion of man. 
David, thr Poet King, sat mn 
while the fire burned and to thr 
harmony of thr winds hr Wedded 
the deathless eloquence of thr 

Praline I he great Alfred before 
thr Mating hearth of thr humble 

cotter, mapped out his victorious 
campaign, the serried flames un- 
lolding to his prophetic vision the 
moving armirs of an immortal 
conquest. By thr bla/ing camp 

t ltrael*l happy host, ; 
Miriam sang hrr song of deliver- 
ance on thr banks of the Red 
and in a later day and newrr 
world, the jubilant bon-firr* *< 
Appomattox lighted up thr night's 
repose, heralding the birth of a 
new freedom and the death of an 
ancient wrong. 



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Yet in the sacred privacy of the 
home the open fire has served its 
noblest purpose and sanctified its 
sweetest sentiment. Before the 
fireplace piled high with blazing 
ogs. the family circle becomes 
the family circle in very truth and 
fact. All barriers are burned 
away by its cordial warmth, and 
hearts and minds lie bare. And 
what we mean, we say, and what 
we would, we know. The fire- 
place becomes the family confes- 
sion. \1, and in the light of its in- 
spiring flame, we confide our 
hopes, our fears, our 1< 
Mother, father and children then 
become these entities, in fact as 
in name, and the tie of home and 
family is tempered and hardened 
by the glowing embers that cast 
their gentle radiance out, making 
warm and glad our hearts. 

And then those pictures in the 
fire that are presented in the sweet 
silences about the hearth — Si- 
lences that are none the less com- 
munion! In the lazy flames that 
slowly dance and flicker, yearn- 
ing boyhood sees portrayed the 
triumphs and achievements of the 
years to come; the matured man. 
the paradise of a vanished past. 
The maiden, gazing through the 
veil of shifting flames, sees com- 



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- SnCOAlD ri_OOR PLA>s 



44 





ing to her warm embraces the 
hero of her dreams, while the 
;/randdame half nodding in the 
chimney corner, with wistful sad- 
ness beholds in quiet rapture the 
lost lover of a youth that is gone, 
now beckoning her to a near and 
never ending reunion. 

The sparks fly upward as new 
wood is | .ist upon the groaning 
andiion.s. and the spell is snapped, 
for only in the log that is a living 
coal, are real pictures seen. 

Yes, the family circle has ever 
found its finest expression about 
the open lii' | I if-. It was so in 
the remote p. 

"When round thr lonely cottage 

Roared loud the tempest's din. 

And the good logs I !us 

Roared louder yet within." 

And it is so today, when wood 
costs eight dollars a cord ann you 
know that the honest husl 
man who sells it to you has in- 
advertently worked in entirely too 
much gum and poplar as genuine 
hickory and sugar. The fireplace 
is back and its back to stay, and 
while the most of us cannot af- 
ford it as a daily luxury, we can 
light it as the oils and incense are 
lighted on the altars of our wor- 
ship. It can be lighted on Sun- 





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riJZOT fLOOR, PL-VH 



OCCOND VLOOR, PlAN, 



FI3 4 1913 



